Specifics dictate friendly, tragic outcomes in SWAT cases

Saturday

Oct 5, 2013 at 12:01 AMOct 5, 2013 at 5:10 AM

Two police SWAT cases during the summer put Massillon residents on edge. One involved a man with a knife who took a woman hostage inside a hair salon; the other involved a man with a gun firing at police officers. In one case, a man was shot to death by Canton SWAT. In the other case a man was taken into custody. Why did the two cases have such different outcomes?

Christina McCune

A hostage situation. A showdown with a gun. Two intense events that put lives in danger and required police action happened here within two weeks last summer.

One ended in a death; the other peacefully with an arrest.

In each case, city police were faced with an armed man who had barricaded himself inside a building, threatening to hurt himself or someone else. Both times, the Canton Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team was called.

That’s where similarities end, leading to different outcomes, police say.

“Really, those situations weren’t similar at all,” said Canton Police Chief Bruce Lawver. “Those situations weren’t close to being similar. Those situations were worlds apart. One didn’t relate to another.”

Shane Allen Ryan, 28, of Canton, was shot by a SWAT team officer July 28 after Ryan took a woman hostage inside the Great Clips in Massillon. His former girlfriend, who was not working at the hair salon that day but was called to the scene, has said Ryan had thrown out the knife. But he did not let the hostage go and was shot and killed.

Ryan’s family was left with unanswered questions about the way law enforcement handled the situation and whether Ryan, who had brushes with the law in the past and was in and out of mental health institutions, could have been spared.

All police-involved shootings are reviewed by a Stark County grand jury, which will examine whether law enforcement’s actions were justified. The Great Clips shooting is expected to go to the county prosecutor’s office next week.

“As a matter of course, we present all officer-involved shootings to a grand jury for their review,” said Dennis Barr, assistant county prosecutor. “The grand jury will determine if there should be any criminal charges as a result of the incident that occurred.”

The officer was placed on a mandatory three-day administrative leave with pay. Ongoing counseling and mental health services are available for the officer, whose name is not being released because no charges have been filed.

Less than two weeks after the hair salon shooting, city police found themselves being shot at from a home in the 700 block of Geiger Avenue SW. Again, the Canton SWAT team was called. This time, negotiations were effective. Steven P. Bubenchik Jr., 40, was taken into custody.

Bubenchik is in the Stark County Jail, charged with three counts of attempted aggravated murder and single counts of receiving stolen property and having weapons while under disability. His case is awaiting a review by a county grand jury.

DETAILS ARE KEY

Brian A. Chopko is an associate professor in Criminology and Justice Studies in the Department of Sociology at Kent State University Stark Campus in Jackson Township. Generally, he said, when a hostage is involved it changes the situation.

“The key element is what the details are in these different types of cases,” he said. “Officers do, in general, try to use lethal force only as a last resort. There can be a lot of negative consequences to the officers.”

Chopko said there is a potential for lawsuits and negative attention by the media, and, in some instances, emotional distress.

“There’s a lot of reasons for officers to avoid (use of lethal force) when they can,” he said.

Chopko is a special commission deputy sheriff with the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office. He used to be a reserve deputy in Trumbull County and was a part-time police officer with the Howland Township Police Department. He also is a licensed therapist specializing in post-traumatic stress disorder with police officers.

“It’s a very difficult position to be in,” he said. “It’s completely different when you’re facing that situation yourself.”

He said some officers have never been shot at or injured, while others have had weapons pulled on them and have been injured in the line of duty.

“Those past experiences can have an influence on your survival instinct,” he said. “If you’ve never had that experience, it’s hard to put yourself in that situation. That’s human nature. Police officers are first and foremost human beings.”

DANGEROUS DYNAMICS

Sheriff George T. Maier said the two incidents that played out in Massillon each presented differing circumstances. The sheriff’s department was asked by the Massillon Police Department to be the investigating agency for the July hostage situation.

Maier said that officers train and practice for the outcome to be resolved in the best way, without anyone being harmed.

“We learned there was a history of mental health issues,” he said. “Those are harder to determine. You don’t know the will of the individual and the direction it’s going to go. You really never know.”

When a hostage is involved, it changes the intensity of the situation. Sensitivity is heightened when there’s a threat of serious physical harm to a hostage, Maier said.

“Officers are used to responding to dangerous situations daily,” Maier said. “They become accustomed to dealing with those situations, and they become accustomed to dealing with them well. I think (a hostage situation) changes the mental state of the officers. It’s not about their safety — now they have to think about protecting someone else. They train for that, and they deal with it daily.”

The hostage case is still an open investigation, said Capt. Tim George of the Sheriff’s Office, noting that reports are still being gathered and all details have not yet been released.

NO TEXTBOOK CASES

Maier does not use the words “standoff” or “shootout” to describe the Aug. 9 incident because police officers were fired at but did not exchange shots.

“He ambushed the police,” Maier said. “I think they handled the situation very well. When you’re dealing with situations like this there’s no textbook that can tell you the right or wrong, and there’s no textbook that can tell you the outcome.”

Police did not return fire because they are trained to take cover first in a situation like that, Interim Police Chief Bill Peel explained after the incident.

About a dozen shots were fired from a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol, which struck police cars and homes. It was later discovered that the gun had been reported stolen a few years ago.

Peel said that in both cases the Canton SWAT team responded for the safety of everyone involved because of their training. Massillon officers don’t receive continual specialized training like SWAT team members do.

“You want to have the best trained and equipped personnel to be able to do that,” he said. “I think it’s been almost two years since (Massillon officers) received training. To be the most effective, you need to do the continual training. We didn’t want to use our team because they hadn’t been continually trained.”

Every situation is going to dictate something different, Peel said.

“It’s a lot of common sense, too. Each situation is going to be unique, said Peel. “Police work is pretty dynamic. It’s thinking on your feet and maybe changing the thought process based on the situation changing. There’s no set protocol or anything of that nature.”